Per Capita Air Travel in EU and US States

Dec 20, 2018

The chart above shows the number of passengers that traveled by air for every resident in each EU and US state. The only three states to have more than ten passengers per resident are all island states.

Findings

The difference between the state with the greatest number of per capita air travelers, Malta, and the state with the least (which has commercial airports), West Virginia, is 14.36.

Malta has 77.69 times the number of air travelers that West Virginia does.

The difference between the EU state with the most per capita air travelers, Malta, and the US state with the most, Hawaii, is 1.84.

Malta has 1.14 times the number of air travelers that Hawaii does.

Delaware is the only state in both the EU and the US without a single commercial airport.

The median number of per capita air passengers in the 28 EU states is 3.04 and the mean 3.84.

The median number of per capita air passengers in the 50 US states is 1.63 and the mean 2.46.

The median number of per capita air passengers in the 78 EU and US states is 2.16 and the mean 2.96.

Caveats

Travel data is from 2017.

EU population data is from 2011; US population data is from 2010.

All figures are rounded to the nearest hundredth.

Details

The United Kingdom which has the most air travelers overall, ranks 17th when its population is taken into account. The other two leaders in the overall metric, Germany and Spain, rank 34th and 15th in this metric, respectively.

As noted earlier, Malta, Hawaii, and Cyprus are the only states with more than ten times their population in air passengers. An additional six states have more than five times their population in air travelers (in descending order of travelers): Ireland, Luxembourg, Alaska, Colorado, Denmark, and Georgia. Obviously, island states will fare better in this metric because the modes available for interstate travel are limited. For Hawaii, they are limited even more as ferries are not really an option as the state is located in the middle of the world's largest ocean. In addition, the state is made up of several islands.

Twenty states have less air travelers than they do population. Four are from the EU and 16 from the US (which also includes Delaware which has no airports).

Of the 19 states with a population over 10 million, Greece, the Netherlands, Florida, Portugal, Spain, and the United Kingdom have more than four times their population in air travelers. On the other end of the spectrum, Poland, Romania, and Ohio have less than one air traveler for every resident.

Of the six states with more than 100 million air passengers, only Spain and the United Kingdom have more than four times their population in air travelers. The remaining four have more than two times their population in air passengers.

Not a single state ranks in the top ten in both overall air passengers and air passengers per capita. Georgia is the only state to come close ranking 11th overall, and 10th in per capita air travelers.

Luxembourg rises the most spots when comparing per capita air travelers to total air travelers. It ranks 55th in total air travelers, but rises up to sixth when its population is taken into account, thus rising 49 spots. On the other end, Poland drops the most as it ranks 16th in total air travelers but only 60th in per capita air travelers, thus dropping 44 spots.